Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The new Iraqi Parliament was supposed to meet today to choose a new Speaker; instead the session fell apart in rancor, and after a break, Sunni and Kurdish deputies failed to return, denying a quorum. Such legislative paralysis is not unheard of, as those of us here in Washington know quite well, but we don't currently have an enemy armed force almost within artillery range of our capital city.

An enemy force that just paraded captured armor and an apparent SCUD missile in their "capital" at Raqqa in Syria:

Certainly the Parliamentary paralysis is likely to further undermine Prime Minister Maliki's chances for a new term, despite his bloc having the largest number of seats.

As
Iraq’s political parties held round-the-clock meetings the past three
days to try to agree on the shape of a new government in time to convene
Parliament on Tuesday and begin choosing new leaders, Mr. Chalabi’s
name was one of two being prominently mentioned to replace the incumbent
prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Mr.
Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress has only one seat in the Parliament,
his own, and it is a measure of his skills as a political operator that
he is even under consideration.

2 comments:

David Mack
said...

Ahmed is persistent. And he is smart. Seems unlikely that those virtues can overcome his past record. On the other hand, Maliki's apparent inability to pull together the 165 seats needed to organize a new government coupled with the failure of Maliki's opponents to agree on an alternative slate of candidates for Speaker, Presidency and PM, means that Maliki might continue for some time as caretaker PM. So far, even the religious Shi'a parties are divided on a governing formula.

"Michael Collins Dunn is the editor of The Middle East Journal. He also blogs. His latest posting summarizes a lot of material on the Iranian election and offers some sensible interpretation. If you are really interested in the Middle East, you should check him out regularly."— Gary Sick, Gary's Choices

"Since we’re not covering the Tunisian elections particularly well, and neither does Tunisian media, I’ll just point you over here. It’s a great post by MEI editor Michael Collins Dunn, who . . . clearly knows the country pretty well."— alle, Maghreb Politics Review

"I’ve followed Michael Collins Dunn over at the Middle East Institute’s blog since its beginning in January this year. Overall, it is one of the best blogs on Middle Eastern affairs. It is a selection of educated and manifestly knowledgeable ruminations of various aspects of Middle Eastern politics and international relations in the broadest sense."— davidroberts at The Gulf Blog

"Michael Collins Dunn, editor of the prestigious Middle East Journal, wrote an interesting 'Backgrounder' on the Berriane violence at his Middle East Institute Editor’s Blog. It is a strong piece, but imperfect (as all things are) . . ."— kal, The Moor Next DoorThis great video of Nasser posted on Michael Collins Dunn’s blog (which is one of my favorites incidentally) ...— Qifa Nabki